Posted on 02/06/2008 1:47:59 PM PST by blam
Swallowed Magnets Attract Trouble In Boy's Stomach, Surgeons Urge Vigilance
Four-year-old Braden Eberle of San Jose holds a pair of small, rare-earth magnets, similar to the ones he swallowed in 2007. The magnets snapped together in his intestinal tract, pinching the tissue. (Credit: Lucile Packard Children's Hospital)
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — Four-year-old Braden Eberle was worried. “Mom, I swallowed something,” said the San Jose boy. His mother, Jill, reassured him when she learned that it was just a tiny magnet that had slipped loose from a construction-type toy. But the next day, he swallowed another.
“I didn’t think anything of it at first,” said Jill Eberle, but she threw away the building set after the second incident. Braden had been holding the pieces in this mouth when the pencil eraser-sized magnets came loose and slipped down his throat. “They were so tiny, I thought they would just pass through.”
The next day, Friday, Braden began to complain of an intermittent stomachache severe enough to wake him from sleep. On Saturday morning, Eberle took her son to the emergency room—purely as a precautionary measure. “I thought it was probably the flu, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the magnets,” Eberle said.
“Braden didn’t really look that sick,” agreed Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatric surgeon Sanjeev Dutta, MD, who evaluated Braden at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose the Saturday before Easter 2007. “But when I heard he’d swallowed two magnets at two different times, I became concerned.” X-rays revealed that the powerful rare-earth magnets had snapped together in Braden’s intestinal tract and were pinching the delicate tissue. Braden needed immediate surgery.
“Dr. Dutta was adamant,” said Eberle, who hadn’t expected such a drastic response. “He wasn’t messing around.” Within two hours, the surgery was over. Dutta used minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques to remove the magnets through just three small incisions, and Braden recovered quickly.
Dutta describes the case in a study published in the February issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine as a cautionary tale for other physicians. The report urges clinical vigilance and early surgical consultation when magnets are swallowed—even if the child exhibits few symptoms of distress.
Many of the magnets in today’s toys contain neodymium, a metal with an unusually strong magnetic force.
“These rare-earth magnets are so much more powerful than the magnets we used to play with as kids,” said Dutta, who is also an assistant professor of pediatric surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine. “Kids swallow things all the time. Even one magnet can cause a problem if the child has swallowed something else made of metal.” Intestinal tissue pinned between the objects can disintegrate, causing an infection or digestive issues. In addition, the affected length of intestine can twist, cutting off the blood supply and killing that portion of the bowel.
“The fact that kids have died or gotten very sick from swallowing these magnets is a big concern to me, and a primary reason why I wanted to publish Braden’s case,” said Dutta.
“These magnet toys are ubiquitous. They’re recommended for older children, but many of these kids have younger siblings.” Braden had been playing with his older brother’s set.
Older children may also be at risk. Less than two weeks after Braden’s surgery, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued an update to an earlier warning about toys containing magnets like those Braden swallowed. At that time, one death and 27 intestinal injuries like Braden’s had been reported due to such magnets. At least 10 of those injuries involved children between the ages of 6 and 11.
Several magnet-based construction sets have been recalled by the commission. In many, the tiny, powerful magnets are affixed to plastic building pieces such as 1.5-inch squares, 1-inch triangles, cylinder rods, flexors, connectors, x-tenders and curves. The sets come in an assortment of colors. Other types of toys and games with the magnets have been subjected to similar recalls during the past year.
“I can’t believe they use these magnets in children’s toys,” said Eberle, who has banned all such magnets from her house. That is, all but two—the two Dutta removed from Braden’s intestine. Those she keeps as a reminder of what could have happened.
“The fact that Braden knew to tell me he had swallowed something may have saved his life,” she said. “I never would have known. I would have assumed it was the flu. It’s so scary how it happens so fast.”
Adapted from materials provided by Stanford University School Of Medicine.
Not only a warning for kids who’ll put anything into their mouths, but pets and certain adults.
“But the next day, he swallowed another.”
One magnet, kids can’t help themselves. But after that first one, I would have taken the toy and parts away.
Personally, I’ve never felt an attraction to magnets.
A 2 year old in our area died a few years ago by swallowing two of those.
I don’t allow the magnetix game in my home because of this, but polly pockets are still everywhere here and they’re dangerous. Luckily, my youngest doesn’t put things in his mouth so much.
These super strong cow magnets have earned that name by saving countless cows from developing the dreaded hardware disease. How? The solid Alnico magnet is placed in a cow's first stomach to collect all of the metal objects that poor Bessy might accidentally eat. Cows just can't tell the difference between grass and nails. Ouch!
How does it work? Cow magnets are widely used by ranchers and dairy farmers to help prevent Hardware Disease in their cattle.
While grazing, cows eat everything from grass and dirt to nails, staples and bits of bailing wire (referred to as tramp iron).
Tramp iron tends to lodge in the honeycombed walls of the recticulum, threatening the surrounding vital organs and causing irritation and inflammation, known as Hardware Disease.
The cow loses her appetite and decreases her milk output (dairy cows), or her ability to gain weight (feeder stock). Cow magnets help prevent this disease by attracting stray metal from the folds and crevices of the rumen and recticulum.
One magnet works for the life of the cow!
I’ve heard this before. One ok. Two bad news.
These are not ordinary ferrite magnets. These are like neodymium magnets, if not that itself. Very powerful magnets, and will take quite a struggle to separate two pieces of them that have clung to each other.
Flat pieces can easily snip skin off, when made to cling to one another, pinching skin in between.
Unlike traditional magnets, these can cause those colour variations that cover the whole screen on a CRT monitor / TV.
Then while waiting with the other kids to start his first day of kindergarten, he went flying through the air and, with a loud clang, stuck to the side of the school bus.
Didn’t Rich Hall do a bit on this on Saturday Night Live back in the 80s?
I guess sticking him in the MRI would have been bad.
Can you imagine what would happen if they gave the kid an MRI.
Can you imagine what would happen if they gave the kid an MRI.
Can you imagine what would happen if they gave the kid an MRI.
No. No. No.
After hearing several of these stories, we got rid of ALL magnet building toys in our house and don’t bring any more in. The little buggers are insidious though, and can turn up under a sofa cushion a year after you thought you’d gotten rid of them.
Everyone with small children, beware.
please teach your kids to only eat food.
***That reminds me of cow magnets. ***
I was thinking of the same thing. You beat me to it.
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It was cool and a big hit at the science show --- especially with all the boys and their fathers. They all wanted to build one too. (Boys & guns ya know.)
I never one cautioned my grandson not to eat the magnets and we took it to a school with hundreds of little kids running around too. I guess I'll get a visit from CYS now. ;~))
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